


Pains that are withheld for me

by annabeth



Category: MASH (TV), Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bottom Dean Winchester, Crossover, Dubcon Kissing, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Incest, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, SamnDean drive off into the sunset, Sibling Incest, Sort Of, Suicide, alcohol use, both Hawkeye and Charles, eventually, mention of drug use, mentions of felching, not sam or dean, period typical homophobic slur, there's a sunset in Charles's face
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:54:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25074202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annabeth/pseuds/annabeth
Summary: What if Charles Winchester was Sam and Dean's great-uncle? And what if he was being haunted, and needed their help?
Relationships: Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce/Charles Emerson Winchester III, Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 5
Kudos: 65





	Pains that are withheld for me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shadesofhades](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadesofhades/gifts).



> It hit me one day that I should combine these two fandoms, because of the coincidence of their last names... this wasn't meant to be quite this long.
> 
> please see the end notes if you want to know spoilers about the suicide tag.
> 
> this is such a niche fic, probably no one knows both fandoms but me and my best friend, but I couldn't help myself.
> 
> Title is from "Suicide is Painless," the M*A*S*H theme.

**As I am now, you soon shall be.  
Prepare for death and follow me.**  
~epitaph from the 1800s

**somewhere on the road in Pennsylvania, 2010**

"Got any jobs, Sammy?" Dean asks, banging on the steering wheel to AC/DC, his sunglasses perched on the top of his head. Sam glances over at him, smiles crookedly, and shines the flashlight on the map. It's just twilight, the sun having set some miles back, but they're driving east, and Sam needs the extra illumination. His laptop is balanced on his knee and against the Impala's door.

"Nothing so far." He yawns. "Where should we head next?"

"I'm thinkin' Vegas, get some quality gambling in," Dean says, with a sideways wink. "Pick up some dancers, get laid… you know, stuff we could do ever since we picked up that latest credit card."

"Dude, I know you're joking." Sam blows his hair out of his eyes and squints into the encroaching gloom ahead of them. Dean, apparently noticing this as well, flicks on the headlights. The Impala's engine roars and growls as Dean depresses the accelerator.

"Only about the gambling," Dean says with a straight face. "And about _you_ getting laid. You're such a prude, Sam."

"That's not what you said when you met Jessica," Sam points out. "And besides, you know as well as I do you're not about get laid by some random woman. Dude, I think I'm gonna get some shut-eye while you drive. Wake me if you get bored." Sam pauses. "And could you possibly not blare your classic rock quite so loud?"

Dean pounds the steering wheel even more vociferously, and Sam groans. Dean chuckles, but then he turns the volume down. Dean's an ass, most of the time, but he's not completely conscienceless when it comes to Sam. Sam snaps the laptop shut, stows it in the backseat, and folds up the map. He's so used to navigating that he's probably one of the few people in the United States who can properly refold a map.

He thinks he's dozed off when there's a ringing nearby, and it's not Dean's ringtone—or his own. He unsticks his crusted eyes open, and rubs them blearily. Dean glances over.

"Awake, Sammy? Grab that, it's in the glove compartment. I think it's one of Dad's."

"Who would be calling Dad this long after he died? It's been almost five years." Sam, now that he says that, can't believe it's been that long. Despite always being at loggerheads when he was alive, even Sam misses their father acutely when he's reminded that John is gone—for good.

"I don't know, that's why I said answer it," Dean says grumpily. His brother's been driving for hours, and Sam supposes he has a right to be a little crabby. Sam flicks open the glove compartment and rummages around inside until he finds the ancient flip phone.

"Yes, this is Beam," Sam says crisply. This phone is the one that John used to call his "Jim Beam" phone. Sam knows exactly why, but he also knows that his father used that as the last name when answering, in case it's a job or law enforcement. There's the sound of very labored, raspy breathing on the other end, before a creaky, wizened old voice says,

"Izzat you, John?" It's obvious he's finding it difficult to speak clearly.

Sam exchanges a look with Dean, mouthing _for Dad_ as he says, just as crisply,

"Who's calling, please?"

"It's your uncle, John, Charles Emerson Winchester the third." The man—he must be very old, and is struggling to breathe—says imperiously.

Sam has never heard about this uncle—or great-uncle, as he supposes the man must be. John never mentioned him, and he doubts Dean knows about the guy either.

"I'm sorry," Sam says, "John Winchester is dead. But—" he makes a snap decision "—I'm his son, Sam. Can I help you?"

"You still do all that witchy stuff?" Charles asks. "You know what I mean."

He sounds like the veriest snob, in Sam's opinion, but people rarely call John's burner phones if they're not looking for someone to help them with a thorny supernatural problem.

He has a flash of insight, and understands that Charles said _you know what I mean_ because he's not sure if Sam knows about their dad's occupation. Sam wonders how he and Dean could still have been in the dark after they grew up, but that's neither here nor there.

"You got a supernatural problem?" Sam asks. "Ghosts, demons, poltergeists?"

"You might say that. There's something strange about my convalescent home. I used to live in a—let's say a big old house, and the wiring wasn't great, I comprehended that, but this fancy new place has problems with the wiring too. But only in my room. And it gets supremely cold at random intervals."

"Yeah, sounds like a problem, all right. Where are you? My brother and I will come and take care of it."

"Just outside Boston. Cambridge. Neville Center at Fresh Pond. I'm grateful for your assistance." The phone disconnects.

"What was that about?" Dean asks, switching his blinker on and changing lanes. "We heading someplace specific?"

"Yeah. Outside of Boston." Sam quickly fills Dean in on the conversation, explaining that the man might be their great-uncle, if he isn't lying.

"Check Dad's journal," Dean suggests. "Maybe it will be like with Missouri, he'll have mentioned it somewhere." Dean smoothly shifts gears—both the Impala and probably also in his brain—and Sam knows, intuitively, that they're now making for Boston.

Sam stuffs the phone back into the glove compartment and digs out John's journal. He begins to peruse the chicken scratch on its pages, and loses a few hours reading about all sorts of monsters and spirits and demons, but nothing that might suggest they had a great-uncle named Charles Winchester.

He eventually closes it with his finger holding his place, thinking about the weird little note he just read: _don't eat mashed potatoes in Boston. Very rich flavor, but tough on the gut._

He recites the note to Dean and says, "Why do you suppose he'd talk about what not to eat in the journal where he transcribes lore?"

"I have no idea, dude, but it _is_ weird. We're almost to Massachusetts, if you wanna get some more rest." Dean's face is slightly grey in the streetlights, dark circles beneath his eyes. Sam realizes, suddenly, that they've been driving for a very long time and they'd just finished a hunt mere hours before they got the phone call from Charles. Dean is pretty obviously sleep-deprived, but Sam knows he won't let Sam drive, and that he won't want to pull over and rest if there's a job waiting.

So he shrugs. "Nah, I'll stay up for now." He doesn't mention that he's doing it for Dean's benefit—keeping him company and commiserating both—but Dean shoots him a grateful look.

So they drive on.

++

**Korea, late 1952**

"Come on now, Charles," Hawkeye slurred, lurching forward and collapsing against Charles's chest. "It's jush… just… a little kiss."

"I rather think you've consumed enough alcohol, Pierce, and suggesting that I kiss you must be a consequence of being intoxicated. I really must be off, I have post-op duty in twenty minutes." Charles brushed ineffectually at Hawkeye, as if he were a piece of lint that couldn't be disposed of from one's clothing.

Hawkeye simply clung, face shiny with perspiration, and giving off heat like a Korean summer. The man was simply the outside of too much. It was currently frigid in Korea, but Charles could feel the heat radiating from Hawkeye on his face. He tried to disentangle them again, but Hawkeye was like an intelligent octopus—albeit a very inebriated one—and simply could not be dislodged. He turned his face up, and his breath nearly gave Charles a contact high.

"Charlessss… it's not a conseque… conse… whatever. I jush like you."

"Pierce, I really must depart, and you do not actually like me, at all. Have you forgotten? The pranks, the practical jokes, the unattractive comments?" Charles was genuinely baffled by this display of affection. He tamped down his surprise and instead embraced his impatience. He finally managed to duck away from Hawkeye, but it did not do him any favors, because it simply allowed Hawkeye the opportunity to meet him head-on.

"One li'l kiss, 'kay?" and he didn't wait for a response this time, but lunged in. His lips—chapped from the winter air—were wet and tasted of gin when Charles tried to open his mouth to speak, even as he attempted to pry him off. Hawkeye took shameless advantage, and Charles—who was trying not to acknowledge this foolishness—suddenly tasted the inside of Hawkeye's mouth.

He felt queerly, body flushing in entirety with heat, and suddenly he felt more like a burning trash can in the Korean winter than an icicle frozen on the inside of the Swamp—because in Korea's interminable freezing temperatures, even the insides of the tents were never properly warm.

There was a breath caught in his lungs, as if his body had forgotten where it should go, and a tingle in his fingertips, as he felt Hawkeye's face beneath his hand as he tried to extricate himself. There was a strange warmth, too, low in his belly, simmering like a pot of tea left too long on the stove, and as Hawkeye kissed him—sloppily, with only the expertise of the very drunk—he began to feel a glow welling up. Perhaps Hawkeye didn't truly loathe him after all.

It was at this moment that Charles remembered the amphetamines he'd ingested to try and keep alert for his many shifts, and that perhaps it was the impetus for these unwanted, ambiguous feelings. He finally managed to push Hawkeye off, and Hawkeye stumbled and waved back and forth on his feet.

"I'll see you later, Pierce," he said. And fled.

There was no other word for it but that, no matter how unflattering it was to his august personage.

++

**Cambridge, Massachusetts, Neville Center at Fresh Pond, 2010**

"Mr. Winchester?" says the woman at the front desk. The lobby is large and airy, and a plexiglass shield apparently protects the woman from the rabble. "I am sorry, but I cannot—"

"We're family," Sam says—for once, not lying—before Dean can get belligerent. "He called us a few hours ago and asked us to visit."

"I'll call his nurse, and check. You boys can wait, over there." She waves them to some chairs, a huge green plant separating the two chairs she indicated. Sam wants to sit next to Dean, and he expects Dean would like the same—since to occupy the two chairs she suggested would mean they couldn't keep an eye on each other.

Sam tries to keep his face blank, and he cannot look at his brother right now or he'll be reminded of the last night they spent together—even if it was over twenty-four hours ago.

Dean, contrary bastard that he is, immediately sprawls in a different chair. His legs are spread, and his head is leaning against his arm as he takes in the place. Dean's apparent relaxed, casual pose is just that: a pose. He's casing the place, looking for any dangers, but Sam—who sits in the chair to his right—does the same. Many a job has benefited from both of them keeping their eyes peeled for danger. Dean is smart, and he'll see anything that looks off, but Sam, Sam will take Dean's observations and connect the dots with the lore he's studied.

Sometimes they do it in the opposite, taking turns because they're a partnership—in more ways than one. Sam peers into the corners of the ceilings, and Dean is currently studying the floors, but at least, in the lobby, nothing looks out of place. The lights, which are a soft, soothing white, are reassuringly steady. His brain, working independently as it does, notes the gold trim at the corners, and the molding adorned with curlicues and little naked cupids. The carpet beneath his feet is extra plush, and there's expensive artwork framed on the walls. The whole place smacks of money, honestly.

The woman is speaking, phone held to her ear, and then she sets it down in the cradle.

Sam nudges Dean, trying not to be distracted by the feel of his iron-hard thigh, as the woman glances over at them.

"Think she's gonna send us packing?" Dean asks sotto voce as they get up and wander back over, as if purposeless—trying to project the image that they're harmless, even if they're both very tall and broad and people can sometimes find them imposing.

Sam, though, has learned the art of appearing smaller than his six-four feet of height, mostly through a generous application of soft voice, compassion, and hunching his shoulders. Dean teases him about this—how he sets people at ease, and convinces them that the thing they most want to do is help Sam and Dean.

"Nah," Sam replies. "She's gesturing to us." They walk over to the front desk again, and the woman—Nancy, her desk proclaims—gives them a tight, unamused smile.

"Mr. Winchester is ill," she says, "and he is resting, however, the nurse on duty on his wing corroborates your story. She says Mr. Winchester is expecting you."

Sam suddenly thinks back, trying to remember if he told their great-uncle about Dean, but the woman is still speaking.

"Down that hall—" she points "—to the right, then another hall, to the left you'll find room 73. Just beyond the nurses' station. Got that?"

"Yeah, we got it, l—"

"Yes! Thank you! C'mon, Dean," Sam says, hauling on his arm before Dean can be rude. They get halfway down the hall she indicated before Dean says, with a blasé attitude,

"She wasn't beautiful, was she?"

"Dean, you can be such a pig," Sam says in rejoinder. "Besides, did you forget you're not supposed to be looking at women anymore?"

"I don't see why I can't simply _look_ , Sammy, and appreciate. The feminine form is meant to be revered, you know."

"I know you think so," Sam says, hand still curled around Dean's forearm. His brother makes no move to try and pull away, and Sam wishes that Dean weren't wearing his leather jacket—and beneath that, his overshirt—because he wants to feel the pleasure of Dean's skin.

And again, as they pass rooms and traverse the hallways, Sam tries not to remember their last night together—Dean's hair, sweaty and limp instead of its usual spikes, and his cheeks, the rosy pink that had settled on him, or his bare chest—Sam wrenches his mind away from that.

And then they're standing in front of room 73. Despite the fact that the facility looks clean, it has an unpleasant odor—air freshener that barely masks the scent of incontinence and rarely bathed bodies.

The door is half-closed, but Sam pushes it inward, and they creep inside—there's a very old man in the single bed, and Sam leans close to whisper directly into Dean's ear,

"He has a private room. Since when would Dad's family have enough cash to afford someplace not only ritzy like this, but a private room?"

The man is entirely bald, except for a few tufts of hair by his ears, and his cheeks are sunken, his body skeletal in its thinness. His old, crepe-like flesh is loose at his jowls, and his eyes are a rheumy blue. He doesn't seem aware of them yet—and is likely hard-of-hearing, to boot—so Sam knocks forcefully on the door.

"Yes, who's there?" The man—who might or might not be Charles Winchester—says petulantly. "I already instructed you, the young men may be admitted to my room."

"Mr. Winchester?" Dean asks. "We're Dean and Sam Winchester. We came to help with your problem."

"Then come in! Don't just stand there like ninnies." He waves at them, and his arm trembles uncontrollably. The skin below his arm flaps loosely, as if this state of affairs—his skeletal thinness—is a recent development. Sam smelled his dinner when they came in, and it didn't seem unappetizing—so there must be a different reason for why he'd lose so much weight while in the care of people who should be trying to help him gain it.

Dean pushes the door the rest of the way open and they enter. As soon as they do, the lamp on Winchester's bedside table flickers. Dean shoots a meaningful glance at Sam, who nods in agreement. It might be nothing but… they don't think Charles Winchester wouldn't know what he was talking about.

"Now, look. Your dad likely never mentioned me—my family is wealthy, and they refused to associate with your dad's mother, once she got pregnant out of wedlock—but I've kept tabs. Honoria was my beloved sister. Her son—your father—traveled out to Boston once to make my acquaintance, and while he was here he discovered and exorcised a demon in Honoria's attic. As you can imagine, I learned much about his profession at such time." Winchester pauses to cough, a rattling, choked sound that has Sam reaching for the glass of water by the bedside. Just before he can pick it up, it tips over and goes crashing to the floor.

"When did all this start?" Dean asks, nodding towards the water glass, which, thankfully, was only plastic and did not shatter on the floor. Sam grabs a paper cup from a little stack and pours some water from the pitcher into it. He quickly hands it to Winchester, but his hands shake so badly Sam has to help him hold it to his mouth.

Winchester drinks deeply of the water, but even after he's finished, he's still coughing. There seems to be nothing to do but wait it out, so Sam cools his heels thinking about how plump Dean's lips look sometimes. Like their last night in a motel…

"As I imparted to Sam on the phone," he stops and his gaze bounces back and forth between them, "which one of you is Sam?"

"Me," Sam says, shifting a little uncomfortably. His underwear itch where they've gravitated up his crack from wearing the same clothes for so long. He longs to pick the wedgie, but even though he and Dean are not exactly low-class people, this guy seems to be way upper crust—and even though Dean's probably not that impressed, Sam at least feels like he should try to behave.

"Yes, well. It was occurring in my house. Only in the occupied portions, as well. The maids, when I questioned them, said they saw no unusual activity when they aired out bedrooms periodically." He stops to suck in a breath, and Sam gets the impression that he doesn't get as much air as he needs.

Sam also notes that Winchester lived in a house big enough to have multiple unused bedrooms _and_ had maids. The guy must be loaded—Sam thinks, with some irony, that every poor family must have that rich relation who's a McScrooge and won't help out the less fortunate members.

"In any event. Often, in the master bedroom, while I would be settling in for the night, the lights would flash, or the TV would turn itself on. Sometimes it was cold on my pillow, unnaturally cold. And sometimes when I'd awaken in the middle of the night, the foot of my bed would be illuminated, but with a strange unearthly light. Not the lights from the moon, the bedside lamp, or the overhead. I suspected a spirit back then, but I suddenly worsened from my illness and came here."

Sam takes up the reins. "And when did you notice the disturbances here?"

"Just recently," Winchester says. "It's been three weeks since I was admitted, but only in the past week have the visitations begun again." His eyes flick away, and his papery, pale skin colors a little.

"Why do you call it a visitation?" Sam asks, because that word was chosen carefully. Winchester knows more than he's telling.

++

**Korea, 1953**

"Pierce, I cannot countenance this behavior, particularly your physical trespasses against the person of a major in the army. I've superior rank. You must stop—" Charles leaned back to avoid Hawkeye's hand. "You must stop _touching_ me," he finished, trying to hide his disgust—and fear.

"You oughta listen to 'im, Hawk," BJ said from behind his magazine. "Mr. Fancy Pants can't bear to have the unwashed masses get too close to him."

"Stay out of it, Beej," Hawkeye retorted, grabbing for Charles again. "I'm not asking for anything weird, Charles! Just help me with the shipment of supplies we need to organize in the supply tent."

Charles didn't know why he was so insistent. It was as if something momentous had happened—but he couldn't _remember_. But he also knew what Hawkeye used the supply tent for—assignations. With _women._

"I will assist you, as long as you keep your cretinous paws off me," Charles said with a sniff. Hawkeye whooped—he seemed to be under the influence of too much gin again—and walked jauntily out of the Swamp.

++

**Cambridge, 2010**

It soon becomes evident that Winchester is drained and exhausted from talking to them, so they shake his hand and leave him to his rest.

"It is nine p.m., Dean," Sam says as they cross the parking lot towards the Impala. "It's no wonder he was tired." Dean had wanted to keep interrogating him, and Sam knows it was from worry about the possible ramifications of the haunting, but Winchester is old, frail, and kept slipping up and telling them things that made no sense.

"I dunno, Sammy. I don't like leavin' him here alone."

"He's not entirely alone, dude," Sam says. Then he hunches his shoulders. "It was weird, though. We asked him that question about visitation, and he launched into an old war story. It didn't seem to have anything to do with… well, anything."

"The nurses and staff don't count, man." Dean unlocks the Impala and they get in. "Let's just find a motel, get some shut-eye, and see about it in the morning—as early as they'll let us in. I'm very worried that this could be a malevolent ghost, and that Winchester knows more than he's saying."

"You're not wrong," Sam allows. For a moment, Dean is pensive, sitting in the front seat with the key in the ignition, but he doesn't turn it right away—so Sam scoots over on the bench seat and kisses him, right by his eyebrow. Dean shivers—he's sensitive there—and seems to come out of his melancholy, starting the car and putting it in drive.

++

**The Happy Llama Inn, Cambridge, 2010**

"This might be one of the tackiest motels we've stayed in so far," Dean says, picking up a plastic, sitting llama from the table between the two double beds. On the far wall, there's a llama with a huge, artificial smile, and a rainbow curving around above it.

The carpet is a repeating pattern of llamas in rainbow circles, and Sam has to admit that Dean has a point. The white bedspreads with llamas outlined in rainbow really don't add anything to it either—but it was the cheapest in the area, and that's important, so they picked this one.

"We won't notice it in the dark," Sam says, dropping his duffle onto the floor next to the bed by the window. Dean still always has to have the bed closest to the door—it doesn't matter how much older Sam gets, Dean still always has to protect him.

"Good thing I brought in the beer," Dean says with a yawn. "I might need to get drunk to survive this decor."

"Dude, it's not _that_ bad." Sam starts riffling through his duffle, looking for clean underwear. He's planning on a shower; he's not sure Dean will be able to stay awake long enough for one.

"Sammy," Dean says, gesturing with a beer bottle—when did he open the six-pack?—"the rainbows are mocking my relationship with you."

Sam tosses his clean underwear onto the bed—they cover up the llama's eyes and a portion of its nose, an improvement, in Sam's opinion—and raises an eyebrow. He strides over to Dean and snakes the beer bottle from his unresisting fingers, plunking it down onto the bedside table, and grabbing Dean's face.

He places a smacking kiss on Dean's pouting lips, then lets him go. "Mocking, Dean? Or simply pointing out the truth?"

Because it's been a long time since the word "relationship" applied to them is such simple terms as "brothers." Dean's eyes, which had fallen closed as soon as Sam got close enough, flutter open. Already the green is disappearing in favor of his pupils.

"You know what?" His lips quirk ironically. "Fuck that. Just kiss me, Sammy."

"I think I'd rather do more," Sam says, and turns Dean towards his bed, pushing him down onto it so he's perched on the edge, then shoves his thigh flush between Dean's legs. Dean is already hardening, and Sam—Sam had gotten hard as soon as Dean had pouted, those lips even more lush than usual.

He handles Dean's junk, fondling it into full hardness, then he lowers his head and kisses Dean. His brother's lips instantly part, and then their tongues lazily twist, but it quickly heats up and intensifies, until they're devouring each other's mouths.

As Sam reacquaints himself with the taste of Dean's mouth—a little boozy—and the feel of his lips—plump like pillows, elastic against his teeth—he grinds the heel of his hand into Dean's erection. With his other hand, he rucks up Dean's shirt, scraping the side of his nipple with his nail.

Dean quivers against him, cock pulsating, and he moans against Sam's mouth, losing the thread of the kiss as Sam torments him with his hands. Against Sam's lips, he mutters,

"You're torturing me, dude."

Sam lifts his head. "I don't see you _actually_ complaining, or telling me to stop, Dean."

"You're right. Take it out, Sam. I can't get enough through my jeans."

He quickly opens Dean's fly, and chuckles when he sees Dean's cock, playing peekaboo with the part in the denim. He's not wearing any underwear.

"You're telling me it wasn't at least a little bit good through only one layer? And look—" Sam pokes the tip of his cock, using his nail to gently prod at his slit "—you're happy to see me. I suppose you were just _letting your balls breathe_?"

"Well, of course!" Dean's eyes flick to the side, and Sam knows he's lying. "It's just more comfortable this way."

"Or you were hoping to get laid tonight," Sam says. "Which, I'll gladly oblige you, since it benefits me just as much." He makes a loose circle with his forefinger and thumb around Dean's dick, just below the flare of the head, and drops a kiss on Dean's eyebrow—and Dean rewards him with that little expected shiver; down below, his cock throbs against Sam's fingertips.

"Cocktease, man," Dean says, lifting his hips, forcing Sam's hand to descend his cock a few inches. Sam, not be to rushed, grips more tightly and raises his hand, dragging Dean's flesh up with it. Liquid seeps from the head of his cock, and Sam realizes he's biting the corner of his lower lip—and Dean's eyes are focused on his mouth. Aware of it now, Sam slowly lets his lip slide from between his teeth, then licks his bottom lip.

Dean groans, head falling back as if weighted, and his hips push upward again—though this time Sam is sure it's involuntary. He rubs Dean's shaft with his curled fingers, once, twice, thrice, and then lets him go.

"On your hands and knees," Sam orders, and Dean, shaking his head a little to clear it, kicks out of his jeans, rolls smoothly to his front, and balances on his knees, elbows making divots in the mattress as he lays his head down. Sam figures that's good enough; he opens his own jeans, pulls his cock through the opening in his boxer briefs, and greases himself with the lube he'd pulled from his pocket.

Slippery and wet, he parts the cleft of Dean's ass, exposing his hole, and sticks a finger into him and pulls the muscle open; thus prepared, he snaps his hips forward and his cock fits easily into Dean, the inches disappearing rapidly. Dean's used to this, and his body craves it.

Seated in his brother to the base of his cock, his pelvis snugged against Dean's ass, he holds for a moment, then, using the hand he'd pried Dean open with, he skims his fingers up the length of Dean's back.

He taps the base of Dean's skull, then splays himself over Dean, covering him with his weight, and bites the lobe of Dean's ear. Dean shivers again, ass clenching around Sam's cock, and he growls,

"Cocktease," again. Sam grins, knowing Dean can feel the curving of his lips, and withdraws, right to the tip, till Dean's hole is split only by Sam's cockhead.

He plunges back in, deep, without giving Dean a chance to recover or prepare, but Dean _likes_ it that way, and he shoves backward, grinding his ass towards Sam. Sam lifts his head, chews his lip again, and begins to _move_.

The inward thrust is powerful, drugging, as he loses himself in the sensation of hot, silky walls squeezing around him; and the pull back is glorious, the way Dean's passage clings, unwilling to let him go without a fight.

He embarks on a rhythm, a fierce, unrelenting rocking in and out of Dean, who, unable to simply just lie there and take it, keeps pivoting his hips and shimmying his ass, trying to get Sam to go _faster_ and do him _rougher_. Sam knows exactly how Dean likes it, but it's too soon for him to just get off, so he eases up on his speed, letting Dean drown in the _almost_ of intoxicating pleasure, the way it feels wreathing them both and making their bodies steam a little in the air.

Sam's sweat is sticking his hair to his temples, and Dean's hips are growing slippery where he's clutching them for purchase as he thrusts. Dean raises his head, moans in near-agony, and grits out,

" _Please_ , Sammy! Now! Touch me."

"You know you don't need it," Sam grunts back, and finally, he gives into Dean, increasing the tempo of his thrusts, jabbing Dean ruthlessly with his dick, stroking him deep within, finding that extra sensitive spot and, holding Dean still and keeping himself buried to the hilt, he pistons his hips so that the head of his cock will torture it.

Dean screams, body tensing, and he suddenly goes boneless, like a bowstring that's suddenly been cut, and his hole flutters around Sam's cock even as his passage spasms, clutching at Sam. Dean's body is wracked with tremors, as jizz explodes from his cock and soils the bedspread he's kneeling on.

Sensing that Sam is close—knowing that it's a function of these encounters that Dean, thoroughly losing it, is what always sends Sam careening into climax—he yells back, over his shoulder, in encouragement,

"Come on, Sammy, pump me full of your baby batter!"

There's a quick, sudden silence, where Sam, orgasm momentarily staved off, meets Dean's eyes with the most disgusted, supercilious look he can manage—and he's damn good at those, what Dean's affectionately—or maybe not?—termed his "bitchface."

"Really, Dean?" he says with a single eyebrow raised, until Dean punches back with his ass, driving Sam back into him, and Sam, unable to resist the lure a second longer, begins to come. His body tightens, muscles locking up temporarily, and then he floods Dean with his own release—semen, if one must be technical.

They both collapse, panting, onto the bed, Sam with his superior weight crushing Dean into the mattress, and Dean makes an, "oof," as he lands.

Sam can't move for a long moment, then he manages to prise his sticky, sweaty skin off of Dean, softening cock slipping from the embrace of Dean's hole, and he straightens up, bowing his back with two hands kneading the base of his spine to get the cricks out. Damn, he's getting old.

"You wanna shower, Dean?" Sam offers, forgiving him for his crass and extremely stupid comment from mid-fucking. Maybe end-of fucking, he supposes. But Dean is a limp dishrag splattered across the bed, back heaving with his labored breath.

Sam, too, is breathing hard, his heart thumping powerfully, and he walks on wobbly legs over to his own bed, plopping down onto it to recover before he takes the shower he was planning on, anyway. His dick is shiny with lube and his own fluids, and if he weren't damned exhausted, he'd probably have sucked it out of Dean's hole and fed it to him. Maybe next time—Dean does love that.

The next thing Sam knows, it's full dark and there's a warm, solid body wrapped around him, Dean's chin digging into his shoulder. He can't see the gay-ass rainbow llamas anymore, but he also never made it into the shower.

Sighing, he relaxes into Dean again—though why is he always the little spoon? he wakes up like this a lot—and slips back into slumber.

++

**the next morning, Neville Center at Fresh Pond, 2010**

"Good morning, young men," Winchester says when they step inside his room. The sun is slanting into the space, splashing a pretty yellow stripe on the wall beside Winchester's bed.

"How was it last night?" Dean immediately asks, slouching even as Sam drops into the only chair. Rock-paper-scissors in the car decided Sam got the chair—somehow Dean never wins, and he never learns from his mistakes, either.

"Uneventful, beyond some shifty shadows and a couple of bursts of radio static from that radio over there." Winchester looks haggard in the light of morning, and Sam sympathizes. He might be a rich old coot who never bothered to stay in contact with their dad when he was alive, but nobody really deserves to be haunted.

"Did the shadows come close to the bed or act threatening?" Dean continues, as if he's playing his standard FBI part and has his notepad out and everything—even though he's not so gauche as to actually whip it out and take notes. Sam thinks. Well, he _hopes_ , anyway.

"Nope." Winchester does not elaborate, and Dean throws a glance at Sam, who nods minutely back. Whatever's going on here, Winchester _definitely_ knows more than he's letting on.

"And you said this started in the past week?" Sam asks, jumping into the questioning. If Winchester feels like he's being tag-teamed, he doesn't say so, just gazes unseeingly at that golden yellow patch of sunlight on the wall. Sam follows his gaze… and realizes there's a vaguely human-shaped shadow obscuring some of the light, the patch irregular and disturbed by the faint darkness.

"Just this past week, yes."

"Dean," Sam hisses, leaning over and nudging his brother, who, alerted to the weirdness, examines the wall.

"Your shadow seems to be here this morning as well," Dean observes lazily, as if this is not in the least important. Sometimes ghosts take their cues from the living—and making a big deal out of a malicious ghost can make it start acting crazy.

"So it is," Winchester says calmly. He blinks blue-veined eyelids a few times, seems to come to his senses, and faces Dean and Sam. "I served as a surgeon in the Korean War, you know," he says suddenly, the change of topic weird and inorganic. "In a MASH unit. Terrible stuff, that was. All the casualties, the wounded soldiers that were so young… and the speed! Oh, my. How quickly we were expected to suture them back together so we could—like a conveyer belt—send them right back to the front."

And the shadow shivers on the wall, becoming more distinct—tall, lanky, and thin, it resembles a man more than ever now. But Winchester is now acting as if it's not there, though Sam can't block it out, nor should he; he and Dean must be alert.

"Do you still keep in touch with your old war buddies?" Dean asks. John had; he'd often go drinking with one or another if they ended up in a nearby town. Winchester's face falls slightly.

"No." He looks as if he's going to button up there, refuse to say anything further, but then he adds, "They're all dead, or if not, I have no idea where they might have ended up."

If they're _all_ dead, Sam thinks, then this doesn't narrow the field very much.

"Did any of them hold a grudge against you?" Sam asks, his turn. Winchester bristles, grabbing for his cup of water and knocking it to the floor—though Sam could have sworn it floated in the air for a second—was the ghost trying to _help_ him drink it?

"No, young man. We parted as friends. I corresponded with a few of them for some time, but it has been dozens of years since I heard back from hi—any of them."

Winchester is cagey indeed, but he just let something vital slip—or almost slip. Sam would have hazarded the guess that the shadowy figure, the spirit, was a man—and now it's confirmed, he suspects.

"A man," Dean muses aloud. "You spoke—wrote—to a man, and then one day he stopped answering your letters. What happened?" Dean is running his hand back and forth through his hair, probably remembering the way they spent their night. Sam privately agrees; the way Winchester is acting, as if it's a huge, unrevealable secret, tells Sam a lot. Like maybe there was more to this than simply an "old buddy."

"I do not know." Winchester, at least, holds onto his dignity by refusing to prevaricate once they've guessed the truth—or at least, a partial truth. "I suspect he died. It was a long time ago."

"So, you knew this guy in Korea," Sam says, working it out. "He was special to you, if you noted his absence more than the others. Were you close?"

"It's nothing so tawdry as that," Winchester snaps. "I had no inkling of his feelings until…" and he seems to realize what he's given up, because he clams up. He glares at them; the ghostly shadow seems to hover closer.

"I never implied anything untoward," Sam says, feigning surprise. "It was you who assumed things."

Winchester's glare blackens, and so does the shadow.

"I think it's time for you to leave," he says frostily. "Come back tomorrow but leave your superior attitude at home."

"Right," Dean says. "Call us if you need anything, or the shadow does anything… spooky." He smiles tightly, obviously hanging onto his temper but trying to be cordial. Dean must be frustrated as all hell that Winchester knows something—maybe he knows everything—and he called _them_ for help, but he won't part with any critical information.

"Good day," Winchester says, thawing a fraction. But he doesn't say anything more, and so they slink out of the room like scolded puppies, knowing that there's something more going on here—maybe something dangerous—but unable to pick apart the lock that hides the truth.

"Sammy," Dean says, as they step out into the parking lot. His voice is low, and he's walking with his hands in his pockets, as if he hasn't a care in the world. "Think it was like… you know, like us?"

"I'm beginning to suspect," Sam returns, just as nonchalantly. "And, Dean. "'Mashed' potatoes?" Dean takes his hands out of his pockets and rubs his stubble on his chin; it makes a faint raspy sound, and Sam has to bite back the little thrill he feels.

"You noticed that too?" Dean crow hops a little, so that he's walking at Sam's side and their hands brush with every step. It's risky, what he's doing, but Sam can't scold him for it—it feels good to have the heat of Dean's skin seeping into his own. "Dad did mention him."

"Too rich, and rough on the gut." Sam laughs a little, mirthlessly. "He's so right; Winchester is rich as hell and tough as nails. He's not exactly easy to get along with."

Their fingers brush again, and Dean curls his pinky a little into Sam's palm. Sam closes his fingers for just a half-second, then they step forward and their hands swing apart.

"I doubt Dad had much use for him," Dean says. "Rich, foolish, and arrogant. He would have rubbed Dad the wrong way in _every_ way."

They've reached the Impala.

"But we're still gonna try to do the job," Sam says. They're not getting much out of Winchester, as close-mouthed as he is about almost everything. "I wonder why he asked for our help, if he's not going to give us anything to work with. Well, might as well fire up the laptop when we get back and dig around in his past."

"Find his old war buddies?" Dean asks, as they slide into the car.

"Yeah. We know what war, and we know he was in a MASH unit and—"

"MASH?" Dean asks, as they pull into traffic.

"Mobile army surgical hospital," Sam says, tapping away on his phone. "At least according to this."

"So he was a surgeon in one of those. This is your avenue, Sam," Dean says, and Sam nods absentmindedly before peering over at Dean. His brother's cheeks are pink.

"You're thinking of last night. And we're on a job!" Sam cackles. Dean glowers at him. "Sorry, sorry." Sam blows him a kiss, and watches Dean's cheeks go from pink to red.

"Just do your damn research, dude," Dean says.

And Sam does, losing track of everything as he absorbs the information on his phone.

++

**The Happy Llama Inn, 1956**

Charles sat, primly, at the end of the bed in a chair he'd set there just for that purpose. He was, quite simply, avoiding his family. Honoria was a dear thing, but his father was—well, to be quite frank, his father was a deeply unpleasant man to be around, and Charles, who had been in town for the fortnight before he was to return to Boston, had taken lodgings at this dodgy looking yet shiny new inn. It was here, or nowhere, because his father would _check_ all the fancy, expensive hotels.

Still, the unusual and garish decor was giving Charles a headache, even as he laid out the pile of letters sequentially via when he'd received them. He wouldn't—couldn't—read them around his family. It had been a few years since the Korean War had ended—well, since the armistice had been signed—and Hawkeye Pierce, newly resident surgeon in a prominent Maine hospital (so he said, though privately Charles had doubts about the veracity of this) had been posting letters to Charles since the month succeeding their arrivals back home.

Charles smoothed out one of the letters, the second one he'd gotten, and traced some of the words with his finger. He didn't recall the incident Hawkeye was writing about, but he did recall his feelings—confused, and anxious, and always slightly off-balance where Hawkeye was concerned.

He ought to write back—he should have responded to the very first one—but he hadn't been able to at the time, and now it was too late, he rather thought, with some fatalism. Hawkeye had not been dissuaded by the lack of responses, yet he had continued to correspond with regrettable frequency—or, as it were, less regrettable to _Charles_ that it should have been—and Charles continued to open each letter. To savor the words until he could remember them exactly.

> _Dear Charles,  
>  I know you don't want to hear this. I know it's too late, and you're too rich and powerful blah blah. Forgive me my impertinence. I suppose it's just that I can't help it. I fall asleep at night and I dream about kissing you._
> 
> _I wake in the morning and my first thought is kissing you. I daydream at work and I_ remember _kissing you, and my heart nearly beats through my ribcage. My diaphragm goes tight and funny, and I suddenly can't breathe._
> 
> _I've loved you for so long. I know—I_ know _you must burn every letter I send to you, but I can't stop. This love… it's an agony, knowing you'll never return my feelings, and thorn lodged in my throat. This love is like a rose, but without the bloom. I'll never get over you, never._
> 
> _Oh please. Just once, answer my letter. If you tell me to go to hell, I don't care; call me a disgusting homo, I don't care; threaten to out me at work—I don't care! Just let me see your handwriting on the envelope. Allow me to read whatever vitriol you'd like to heap on my head._
> 
> _-H_

Charles read the letter again, sighed, and slipped it back into its envelope. He didn't remember the kiss Hawkeye alluded to, but perhaps it was just Hawkeye's fanciful imagination, like he'd said.

Charles liked to imagine he could still smell Hawkeye on the pages, but he knew that was entirely too fanciful. He gathered the letters together.

He _ought_ to burn them, to bow to Hawkeye's insight.

But the truth was, he longed for Hawkeye, and it was his flesh that burned. It was a flame flickering in his soul—he could speak of it to no one, and he could do naught about it, but because his own heart beat for Hawkeye, he could no more bring himself to burn the love letters than he could perform heart surgery on himself.

It was going to be a long night.

++

**The Happy Llama Inn, 2010**

"Dude, ya wanna mess around?" Dean asks, as he's sliding his leg out of his jeans. He's probably planning a shower—and if Sam had to guess, he wants company under the water.

"Sorry, Dean, you go ahead without me. I need to concentrate on researching. I'm hoping I don't have to hack into any government agencies in order to find this guy." Sam taps on the keyboard.

Later—he doesn't know how much time has passed—he suddenly becomes aware of Dean, lying back on the bed, his head balanced on his arm on the pillow, and he's… reading?

"What've you got there, dude?" Sam asks, blinking his eyes; they're blurry from staring at the computer screen for so long.

"It's a history of this llama place," Dean says, scratching his nose. He yawns, then flips the page—and scratches his inner thigh. Sam honestly doesn't know if that's supposed to be a come on, or just Dean being distracted.

"Yeah? What's it say?" Sam yawns too, probably brought on by Dean. "Listen, I found his unit."

"It was built in 1953," Dean says, drawing his foot up the length of his other calf, either out of a nervous habit, or because he's itchy there too. Sam wonders if Dean's allergic to the soap in the motel—which Sam has cause to know is shaped like a llama and contains sparkles. Luckily the sparkles rinsed off—he's not sure he wants to appear in Winchester's room glittering.

But Sam forgets about allergic reactions in the next second because his eyes have followed Dean's foot—and then, without his express permission, trained on Dean's dick, which is slightly soft—but also semi-hard. Dean apparently can read and be ready to fuck at the same time. Sam, he can't manage to multitask like that—he's either lost in his reading or researching, or he's raring to go. He can't do both.

"Back when it was built, it was a little more high class. Or just newer, I guess. It's run down now, but these photos make the place almost look good." Dean laughs. "I can't say that with a straight face, simply because it was just as tacky. Cleaner, but still tacky."

"Okay, my turn," Sam says. "Charles Winchester, a major in the US Army, served in Korea during the Korean War in the 50s. Which means he is _super_ old, by the way. He was born in 1921. And his MASH unit is listed, along with some of the other people who served with him. They were only five miles from the front, the 4077th MASH. There was a full complement of nurses, but also several other surgeons, and we know Winchester let it slip that his 'visitation' is probably a man."

"That _is_ very old. I wonder why the old coot is being haunted _now_? This ghost… he could have died a long time ago. Why start pestering Winchester now?"

"I have to wonder. The ghost followed him to the old folks' home, right? So we're thinking—"

"—cursed object?" Dean finishes. Sam nods.

"So, he leaves his mansion for the old folks' home, and then a couple weeks later somebody brings him something, and it brings the ghost with it." Sam taps on the laptop keys for a minute.

"But who is it? And I still don't get the why," Dean says, sitting up and throwing his bare legs over the side of the bed. He stretches voluptuously, and Sam is hard-pressed not to stare at the classical male beauty of his brother. He has far fewer scars than he used to—a function of coming back from Hell—but even the odd scar doesn't detract from his appeal, and Sam has never been very good at concentrating when Dean's in any state of undress. This is no different; Sam loses the thread of the conversation for a moment.

"Put some clothes on, dude," Sam says, eyes smarting from the brightness of his screen. And maybe, just a little bit, watering from staring at all that naked glorious flesh. Dean arches an eyebrow—he knows full well what he does to Sam like that.

"Trouble, Sammy?" he asks innocently, running a finger up and down his belly, then lower… following the little trail of hair towards his boxer briefs. Sam stands up too fast; the chair behind him knocks to the floor with a clatter.

"It isn't the time, Dean, we gotta solve this case."

"Can't do much without Winchester," Dean says, but he grabs the bedspread and folds it around him so that Sam can only see the llama's ass and part of the rainbow—it looks like the llama is farting rainbows now. There's a crusted stain over it, too, where Dean came all over it last night.

"I can still find out who—" Sam picks up his chair, sits back in it, scrubs his hands over his face. "I have a suspicion." He itches behind his ear.

"Yeah? Spit it out, Sammy, though you know that's not usually what I'd tell ya to do." Dean is smirking. Sam wants to belt him one, simply because that's his most infuriating smirk. He settles for tossing Dean another bitchface and then ignoring his innuendo.

"This dude, Captain Benjamin Franklin Pierce, was eventually admitted to a private mental asylum in 1956, under orders from his father. Says he was 'engaging in deviant, immoral, sexual behavior' with 'many individuals of the same inclination.' Sounds like he was… well, like they were like us, don't you think?"

"I did think of that. Remember?" Dean uses the blanket to wipe at his eyes. "It's late, Sammy. Bed?"

"Together?" Sam asks, flipping the laptop closed. "He is definitely dead. Hung himself in his private padded cell in the asylum. Just a few months after he was admitted—and I doubt Winchester had been writing to him for very long. He made it sound like they wrote back and forth until somewhat recently—but not if the guy died."

"Suicide, and attached to Winchester somehow, sounds like a disturbed spirit, all right." Dean tucks himself more deeply into the blanket and falls sideways on the bed, twisting and turning until he's lying on it mostly straight.

Sam grabs his pillow and plops it on the bed next to Dean's head, then climbs into bed. He makes a move to curl around Dean—but his brother's too fast, and Sam finds himself held in the circle of those arms.

It's so strange. He's been bigger and broader than Dean for years now—since he was about seventeen. And he's capable of protecting himself just the same, too. But Dean feels this urge to cuddle him, as if they were still children and the only parental affection Sam got was from Dean. And that's the strange part: Sam can still let himself relax, can settle into those arms as if he's still too young to take care of himself. Being the little spoon should be emasculating, especially when Sam is usually on top when they fuck, but…

It feels nice. That's his last thought before he sleep claims him.

++

**Neville Center at Fresh Pond, 2010**

"Tell us about Captain Benjamin Franklin Pierce, Mr. Winchester," Sam says the following morning, even if it is bludgeoning the man with facts. Winchester flinches, yanking his blanket up to his chin. The shadow is nowhere in evidence this morning, which is both a relief and a worry—if the ghost isn't here, where is he?

"Hawkeye?" Charles says in a wavery voice. "He was… well, very irreverent. And while he tried to be amusing, he was also a superb surgeon."

"That's not what we wanna know," Dean says, sitting in the chair backward, legs spread around the back of it. Sam has to swallow and look away from his brother—how does he make such simple, mundane things look so hot? "You wrote to him?"

"I may have misrepresented things just a tad," Winchester says, voice still quavering. "He wrote to me many times. I—" He stops.

"You what?" Dean prompts. He's being remarkably patient.

"I did not respond for awhile. When I finally returned one of his letters, filled with sentiment I might add, I received a return to sender. When I did some further investigating, I found out he'd…" Winchester stops again, and there's a tear tracking down his cheek.

"That he'd died," Sam says gently. 

"Hung himself," Winchester says. This morning he seems less prickly, more inclined to help them—and he didn't get angry when they asked about Captain Pierce. "It's my fault," he adds in a voice saturated with misery. And Sam realizes Winchester was lying before—he'd known exactly what had happened to his ghost.

"How was it your fault?" Dean asks, trying and failing to keep from tapping his fingers on his thigh. Sam, watching him, is finding it difficult not to be distracted from the matters at hand.

"He had… delicate feelings for me." Winchester's throat sounds scratchy. Unshed tears? Something else? Sam wonders what he's going to say. Will he admit to the fact that Hawkeye was gay?

"Delicate _how_ ," Dean says, and he's like a hammer to a blunt object. Sam will not be surprised if Winchester throws them out again—maybe for good this time.

So Sam interjects.

"Why would he be haunting you now? He died—"

"1956, just before my birthday that year," Winchester says, the frog in his throat still in evidence. "It was the worst birthday I've had. He loved me." Winchester goes as silent as the grave his friend has been in the past fifty-four years. If he's buried at all—and where would his remains be? Sam is going to have to do some more digging on the internet—unless Winchester comes completely clean.

"He loved you. Did you, ah—" Even Dean knows that _sometimes_ it's better to be the honey that attracts the flies, rather than the vinegar.

"I couldn't write to him. He wouldn't have understood, and besides, things went awry. And then I did write, and it was too late." Winchester sniffs, dabs at his eye with a tissue. And Sam realizes that the ghost still hasn't shown himself—and he begins to suspect that the reason for Charles's honesty is because he doesn't feel as if he's being watched by the man he feels like he wronged.

"Where is he buried?" Dean asks, even though it earns him a confused and slightly disdainful look.

"He wasn't. His father thought… well, his father thought people would be embarrassed to come to his viewing. So he was cremated. He lived in Crabapple Cove, Maine, and I believe his ashes have been scattered there."

"So what…" Sam trails off, unsure what question to ask, finally settling on, "It's been fifty-plus years since he died. Why would he come back _now_?"

"I misplaced his letters one year when I was very ill. I was visiting with my family when I contracted pneumonia. My sister Honoria—that's your father's mother—she was responsible for gathering up my things when I went into the hospital." Winchester goes silent, picking at the dish of his breakfast on the table beside the bed. He seems to be shoving his scrambled eggs around, and Sam wonders why he's not eating them—the plate is full of food. Has he been starving himself? Maybe he has no appetite because he's ill?

"Did Honoria read them?" Sam asks.

"I do not know. It was a few months ago, when my niece—your aunt—brought me a package of things she'd found in Honoria's attic. Old things, the type you set aside and forget—but the letters were there. I kept them by my—" this time, when he stops, his eyes flit to the wall—Sam tracks his gaze. The shadow has appeared suddenly in that beam of sunlight again.

"You must depart," Winchester says coldly.

"But if you want us to _help_ you," Dean says, sounding frustrated, "why do you send us away when he appears?"

"Because Hawkeye is mine, not yours. I will not allow—"

" _Why_ ," Sam asks, "did you call us here to dispel your ghost if you don't want us to?"

"Because he's suffering," Winchester says. "Now go. I will talk to you in future. Perhaps tomorrow." And then he turns his face away from them, the interview clearly over. Dean hops to his feet, grabs Sam's wrist, and hauls him out of the room. But just before they're out of earshot, they can hear Winchester speaking—to his spirit, it would seem.

"They are a curious twosome, Hawkeye. I wonder what their relationship truly is."

"He suspects something," Dean hisses into Sam's ear once they're out of the nursing home.

"But he _knows_ we're brothers," Sam says in surprise. "Why on earth—?"

"I don't know, Sammy. But you heard what he said, same as I did. He's—shit, dude. He's talking to the ghost. He doesn't want us to destroy him. Why are we really here?"

"That, Dean, is a very good question."

++

**The Happy Llama Inn, 2010**

Dean takes a huge bite of his burger, secret sauce and lettuce falling from his lips as he chews. He swipes at it with his fingers and Sam averts his eyes, because his brother is _such_ a disgusting eater sometimes. Sam picks at his salad; his own burger is a memory, and it was too greasy, but sometimes even _he_ wants meat and not just leafy greens. Dean is nearly finished with his as well, and then of course, it's time for pie.

Sam is the one who ran across the street to the little diner. He chose apple pie for Dean—it's Dean's favorite.

"So, it's got to be a cursed object," he says, ticking things off on his fingers. "The ghost wasn't with Winchester for years. Then suddenly he appears. Then Winchester removes to the nursing home, and Hawkeye's not there."

"And then, mmph," Dean says through a mouthful of food, before swallowing expansively. "And then he has some things brought to the old folks' home, and suddenly Hawkeye is there too."

"I wonder…" Sam muses. "How d'you suppose he got the nickname 'Hawkeye?'"

"Who knows." Dean leans back and belches, belly slightly rounded against his t-shirt. "Where's mah pie?" he asks, and Sam passes over the styrofoam container with the piece of pie inside.

"He's been cremated, so we can't simply burn his bones," Sam says, forking up a bite of salad. "But Winchester didn't say he had anything personal of Hawkeye's. What could it be?"

Sam thinks it's rather obvious that Winchester has been talking about the letters a lot. But…

"It ain't the letters," Dean says, tacking onto his thought—even though he hadn't spoken it aloud. "At least, I don't think so. Winchester _wants_ us to focus on those. Which makes me think he's got something else, something more… embarrassing? I'm not sure, but something else."

"I think so too. I'd be surprised if it was the letters." Sam eats the last bite of salad. "But we should ask to see the letters just in case. It might be the simplest conclusion—sometimes they are." He rubs his lips with a napkin, and when he glances up, Dean is doing the same thing, after having polished off his whole piece of pie in record time. Sam is suddenly hungry—but not for food. He stands up, walks around the little table, and leans his hip on it as he runs a fingertip down the column of Dean's neck.

"I could use dessert," he says. Dean shivers, turning his face up to Sam.

And when they kiss, Sam is not thinking of Charles and Hawkeye anymore—but there's something that will niggle at his memory later.

++

**The Happy Llama Inn, 2010**

In the middle of the night, Sam sits bolt upright in bed, Dean's arms falling away, and even as his brother continues snoring, Sam tries to pinpoint what woke him up. It wasn't the weather—though a thunderstorm is rolling in—and it wasn't Dean, who's sleeping peacefully with no nightmares.

And then it comes to him: the expression on Winchester's face when they asked about Captain Pierce. He'd dodged their question—however imperfectly put—about whether he returned Pierce's feelings. But that look on his face was pure misery—and heartbreaking agony. He'd loved Pierce back, but it seems like he never told him.

Sam wonders what was in that last letter he sent to Pierce. Declarations of love? A confession about how he felt? And now, is Pierce haunting Winchester because of their unfinished business—the fact that he never received that letter from Winchester? Maybe Pierce knows how Winchester feels now—but Sam bets not. Sam bets that Pierce is still lingering because his love was never requited, or at least, he didn't think so, and after his death—

"Dean! Wake up!" Sam twists a little in the bed and wallops Dean on the shoulder. Provided Dean doesn't have a knife or gun under his pillow—and Sam knows he doesn't right now—he's not dangerous to wake up, though it can be difficult to accomplish.

"Mrgh, Sammy, it's the middle of the night," Dean says, sounding more coherent than he should. Maybe Sam did disturb his sleep a little when he sat straight up.

"I just had a thought. Winchester is ill, right? And he looks like death. He's not eating, so he's hemorrhaging pounds. What if he's dying? What if Pierce came back now because they're about to be reunited?"

"Yeah, but," Dean yawns hugely, hand beneath the blanket coming to cup Sam's ass, "Pierce doesn't know how Winchester felt about him."

"So you noticed that too." Sam pokes Dean in the bicep of the arm currently attached the hand on his ass. "Not now, Dean. Case now, fuck later."

"I thought of it when you were falling asleep. Winchester didn't say so much in words, but he sure as fuck implied it a lot. I got to thinking about what he said about _us_. He either guessed or suspects something fishy—and I thought, what if he's projecting?"

"Winchester is protecting his ghost. I still don't understand why we're here." Sam shakes his head, but the siren lure of sleep is calling him back. He flops backward, and Dean shifts to make room for him.

"Maybe he'll tell us tomorrow," Dean mumbles, obviously also falling back to sleep. Sam tries to respond, but it _is_ the wee hours of the morning, and his body is reluctant, at this point, to do anything but sleep. His mind circles a few times, rather frantically, but Dean's even, stertorous breathing is like a lullaby, and Sam can't help but listen—and fall under its spell.

By the first clap of thunder, he's gone under.

++

**The Neville Center at Fresh Pond, 2010**

"Just how sick are you?" Dean asks without preamble two days later. They'd called, and Winchester had refused to see them till now. The lights shudder violently and the water glass crackles and pops loudly as the plastic is suddenly compressed in the middle.

"Hawkeye, cease," Winchester says, then shrugs with one shoulder. "He usually doesn't deign to do as I ask, but I suppose it's to be expected. I do not know how sentient a ghost is." The window bangs open and closed, and they all wince.

"More than I think we'd like," Sam remarks, and they all wait for further disturbances, but nothing immediately happens, so Sam adds, "but answer the question. Please."

"I'm rather certain I'm dying. I watched a lot of soldiers die on my operating table during the war, and there's a certain… I don't know what to say. I can't describe it, but I feel it hovering over me this time—and it isn't Hawkeye."

With their suspicions confirmed, Sam recalls the full dishes of food and wonders if Winchester has simply given up, and has no appetite anymore. If he's dying… he might not see the point. Is he only still alive because of Hawkeye?

And on the subject of his curiosity,

"Why was he called 'Hawkeye?' Was that a nickname between the two of you?" Sam asks.

"Ah, no. His father gave it to him. His father's favorite book was _Last of the Mohicans_. I believe he said that it was possibly the only book his father ever read." Winchester smiles wistfully, and Sam is getting more and more of the "friends who were something more" vibe.

"Why are we _really_ here?" Dean asks, determined to get an answer this time. Winchester must know it, too, because he sighs.

"I was frightened," Winchester says. "But as I grew more ill, I began to be comforted by his presence. I suppose I should have simply said so, and sent you on your way, but… things became difficult." He's petting his hospital blanket, and there's a very tense silence—weighted—pressing down on them.

"We can get him to move on," Sam says, "if that's what you want. If not… well, we could wait." _For you to die_ , goes unsaid, and Sam wonders if Winchester knows that's what he's getting at.

"The letters," Dean says suddenly, as if he's only just thought of it—though Sam knows better; he and Dean have conversational rhythms for their interrogations. "If you want Hawkeye to move on, we need to burn them."

"Burn them?! Surely not!" Winchester tries to sit up higher in his bed, and begins to wheeze and turn apoplectic red before subsiding. "You cannot burn them!"

"If he was cremated," Dean says reasonably, "then we can't do what we normally would, and burn his bones. He's attached to an object now, and the only way to dispel his spirit is to salt and burn that object."

"Unless there's something else," Sam says, good cop now. "Do you have anything in your possession that Hawkeye may have owned? Or a lock of hair, something like that?"

"No," Winchester says primly, crossing his hands and linking them together. "And he can't very well be attached to letters that he sent me fifty years ago. I've had them a long time. Hawkeye didn't…" but he doesn't finish his sentence.

"If we burn them, we'll find out," Dean says slyly. Winchester begins to pleat the blanket with nervous fingers.

"I-I have his dog tags," he blurts, and for once he doesn't sound quite so self-assured. "He sent them with his last letter. But it was, er, lost, I think."

"Lost?" Sam asks. He quickly catches Dean's eye, and Dean nods slightly. Sam is thirsty, but they have a little more to do here before he can get a drink. Of something stronger than what Winchester has. It's not like him to want beer or liquor, but this case is giving him a headache.

"It's dated 1956, a few days before he hung himself." At this the window bangs open and closed again, and Winchester flinches. "He isn't happy. Listen to me, you both. Don't let things drag out until it's too late." He looks straight at the wall, where Hawkeye's shadow usually appears when visible.

"What do you mean?" Dean asks, and Sam wonders just what exactly Winchester thinks he knows about them. He might've guessed there's more to them than meets the eye—but he's not throwing some kind of fit. Does he just not care, since he's dying?

"Just that. I should have replied to his correspondence in a timely manner. I did not, and I believe that is why he took his own life. It is my fault, and the guilt has been killing me for fifty years. Now, it seems, I shall finally die, and take that guilt with me. I want—" He gulps down a breath "—I want you to lay him to rest when I am gone. He oughtn't have to linger here, in some kind of painful limbo, even after I've passed on."

"That's it?"

"In any case, that final letter turned up with the others one day, his dog tags tucked within it. I don't pretend to know how it happened, how it got there, but that was a few months ago."

"You said your sister had the letters till then," Sam says, feeling his way through the mystery. "Maybe the letter went astray?"

"I do not know what happened. If my sister had that letter, I don't know why she kept it from me."

Sam thinks Winchester knows more than he's telling—again. But this time he doesn't think the man is going to give an inch. And where it came from isn't that important.

"We ought to burn the dog tags, Sammy," Dean says, getting to his feet. He stretches and cracks his back, then nods to the empty wall. "He's apparently gone for now."

"For now. I am exhausted." Winchester purses his lips, then leans over to the little night table. He pulls out the top drawer. "Please let me keep his letters for the nonce. But the dog tags… ah, I will miss them, but also not. It is a reminder of the horrors we went through together, so in some ways, I will not miss them." He lifts out the battered metal necklace and hands it to Sam—who thinks Winchester might be just a little bit peeved with Dean. Dean shrugs _his_ shoulders, and they make their goodbyes, then Sam shoves the dog tags in his pocket.

"Tonight?" he says. But Dean shakes his head no. He looks thoughtful, as if he's considering something—which is confirmed when he says, in an about face from two minutes earlier,

"I don't think so. I think Winchester needs Hawkeye a little bit longer. It might ease him into death if he knows Hawkeye is waiting."

"But Hawkeye is waiting on _this_ plane, not wherever Winchester is going," Sam points out. "Shouldn't we—"

"Wait till Winchester says to do it explicitly. He was tired today, but we can come back tomorrow."

"And then what?"

"We have to get Winchester to make peace with Hawkeye," Dean says grimly. "It won't be easy and it will probably infuriate the old man, but I think it needs to be done. Hawkeye has suffered all this time without knowing… without knowing what we suspect, and I think that not only will Hawkeye rest, perhaps without needing to burn anything, but Winchester might be able to die peacefully, with no regrets."

"Then that's what we'll do," Sam says. "But, dude. That means we need to leave the dog tags here." He fishes them out of his pocket and holds them up to the fluorescent lights in the hallway. He stops walking, and Dean, always attuned to Sam, also halts and turns to look over his shoulder.

"Sammy… did you feel anything when you took them from Winchester? Cold spots, or electricity, something to indicate that Hawkeye is attached to them?"

Sam stares at the little metal tags. He hadn't even considered that. He whirls around, taking off down the hallway at a lope. He has to get back there—what if Hawkeye's angry with Winchester?

"Sir! Sir, no running, please!" calls a nurse from the nurses' station as Sam whizzes past. He slows, but only until he turns the corner. He's back in Winchester's room, gasping for air, when he sees the shadow on the wall. Winchester, who is hard of hearing, hasn't noticed him yet; there are tears running down his cheeks.

"W-winchester!" Sam gasps out. "Did he leave? Was he gone?"

Dean enters the room moments later, glancing back and forth between the two of them.

"No," Winchester says stiffly, with a regal tilt of head that dares Sam to comment on his tears. "Should he have?"

"Oh, God," Sam says. "Yes. It's not the dog tags. If it had been, he would have been transferred to me when you gave them to me." Sam drops the dog tags on the table. The water glass is on the floor, and the window is wide open, a cool breeze blowing in the air.

"Did he hurt you?" Dean asks. But Winchester shakes his head. The shadow is rippling on the wall, as if agitated, but Hawkeye's spirit doesn't otherwise react.

"Winchester. Charles. Did you _love_ Hawkeye? Like he did you? Because you need to tell him so. I think he's trapped on this plane because he doesn't know you felt the same way." Dean leans his hip on the bedside table. "And, can we see those letters?"

"They are private, young man! And I don't appreciate your insinuations." He curls his lip, the epitome of the cream of Boston society. Sam remembers that he's got tons of money, and that he grew up around here.

"Charles, stop. We _know_ , all right? We won't say anything, but nothing will be resolved unless you face up to it. I know I'm pissing you off, and I'm sorry, really, I am, but this has gotta be done," Dean says, and Sam can hear the slight edge of anger to his voice, one that no one but Sam is likely to notice.

"How could you know any such thing?" Charles turns his head away from them, and the window snaps closed, followed by a spate of extreme cold that blankets the room until Sam shivers. In the bed, Winchester is suddenly wracked with tremors. He reaches for his blanket, but it's ripped from his hands.

The water pitcher doesn't fall to the floor—it swings forward, dousing Winchester in water, and the room is only getting colder. But Sam doesn't think Hawkeye is angry with them—all the phenomena is focused on Winchester.

"Hawkeye! Stop!" Sam yells, but his volume is dampened, as though underwater. "He's not denying _you_ but us." Everything goes still and silent, and the room warms. The pitcher of water drops harmlessly to the floor. Sam grabs the spare blanket at the foot of the bed and wraps it around Winchester's frail, bony shoulders, trying to get him warm even though he's all wet.

And then Sam sees Dean, and realizes that Hawkeye didn't stop because of his words, but because Dean is holding a well-wrinkled, old piece of paper.

"Sammy, look." Sam steps over to him, and Winchester glares angrily, but he doesn't stop them—he quickly looks back to the wall. Outside, it starts to rain, and gray gloom filters into the room, obscuring whether Hawkeye is even still there.

"That's blood," Sam says, at the splotch Dean is pointing to. "Hawkeye's blood, if I had to guess, and I don't know that we do. Not the dog tags but—"

"—but the final letter," Dean finishes. "Winchester, _tell him how you feel_."

Sam catches sight of some of the words:

> _...this is the end of the road for me. I have come to terms with the fact that you're disgusted by me. This is gonna be my last letter. I wish you had written me, if only to tell me you hated me now. It would have been easier…_  
> 

"It's a suicide note and love letter both," Sam says in a whisper. "Dean's right, Charles. He died because he thought you hated him."

"I know. It was my fault. I was to blame. If I had only… only…"

"Do it now," Dean urges firmly. "It's not too late. _Tell_ him." The shadow is suddenly much darker, more intense, and the gloom in the place darkens to almost night.

"We'll wait outside the door," Sam says, yanking on Dean's hand. They leave the room and shut the door, but they can still hear Winchester, and Sam realizes Dean left the letter in the room—he hopes this isn't a huge mistake.

"Hawkeye, Hawkeye, I am so sorry," Winchester is saying, crying audibly. "I couldn't… I couldn't do anything. I was a coward, and an ass, and a prig… My family was so important to me." Sam can barely hear his next words. "But you should have been more important."

"This still doesn't sound like a confession," Dean mutters. Sam puts his hand on Dean's shoulder, squeezing, and loving the solid feel of his body.

"It's more than we would say," Sam says, and then Winchester gets a little louder again.

"Hawkeye, you deserved better than my treatment of you. My letter… I wrote back too late. I've never been easy since I left Korea, knowing I'd left you behind." There's a loud crash, and Dean tenses, but Sam tightens his hand on his shoulder. "I loved you, Hawkeye, even though I couldn't admit it to myself. I loved you back then, and I love you now." There's silence from within the room, then a soft, keening wail, and Sam grabs the door handle and jerks it open.

Winchester is lying in his bed, his eyes closed, his body preternaturally still. He's not going to be moving, ever again. But the shadow is crouched on the floor now, instead of the wall, and Winchester—only moments ago soaking wet—is dry as a bone. His face is peaceful, and yet the room is filled with the sound of sobbing.

"He didn't do this," Sam says. "Winchester made his peace. He's gone. And we need to leave."

Dean nods, and yet he stops to pick up the last letter. Then, as an afterthought, he snags the rest of the pile, too.

"We'll burn them. As soon as we get down the road a little, in that copse of trees we always drive by on the way here. I don't think the people who will box up his effects should see these." Dean pauses to kiss Sam just under his earlobe, and then they separate a little. As they walk down that hall in the nursing home for the last time, Sam allows their shoulders to bump together.

"It's almost a happy ending, of sorts. What do you want for dinner?"

"Pie," Dean says, throwing a grin over his shoulder back at Sam.

"Man, it's always pie with you," Sam says, but he's laughing as he says it. It feels nice to laugh—to forget the stink and weight of death always pressing down on them, and these last few days have been filled with it. But he already feels lighter, even though their great-uncle is dead and the spirit of his lover is mourning. But they can—and will—fix that.

It's been a little bit of heaven with Dean, much like the pie he loves, and Sam wouldn't trade that for anything—even with this outcome, which is not the one he anticipated when they drove out here.

++

**Joe's Diner & Grill, Connecticut, 2010**

"Ahhh," Dean says, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his swollen belly. "Pie. My favorite thing."

Sam grins through a mouthful of veggie burger. Dean was horrified when he ordered it, but Sam needed something besides the thick grease of the food that Dean usually eats.

"I thought I was your favorite thing," he says teasingly, mostly to get a reaction. But Dean is too replete from his pie to rise to the bait.

"We did something good out there, Sammy," he says instead, suddenly serious. "We reunited them. And it wasn't a tragedy, not in the end."

"No, not in the end." Sam is quiet, and Dean is too, and he knows they're both thinking the same thing. As they salted and burned the letters, Hawkeye had gone from being a shadow to the ghostly image of a man—with dark hair and pale skin, though that could have been the translucence. He had smiled at them as he turned to wisps of smoke and slowly blew away with the breeze.

Sam knows they did a good thing, because Hawkeye was relieved to be going. They're together now, wherever they are.

And Sam is with Dean, who's watching him closely. Sam smiles, deliberate and devilish, and Dean's cheeks grow pink.

Tonight they'll stay in a different motel, hopefully without a llama in sight, and Sam is going to bury himself in Dean, and they'll both forget about life for awhile.

Sometimes, this is actually a pretty good life.

END

**Author's Note:**

> Hawkeye hanged himself in 1956.


End file.
